


And I love you, don't you know, that I'll be with you all along, as long as you are kind?

by PhoenixTalon



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale, 半妖の夜叉姫 | Hanyou no Yashahime | Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Moroha deals with her feelings, Other, Sadness, Trauma, parental abandonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27665158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixTalon/pseuds/PhoenixTalon
Summary: Moroha follows a familiar scent and finds her mother's old bedroom.The scene I wish had been in episode 3.
Relationships: Higurashi Kagome/InuYasha
Comments: 14
Kudos: 133





	And I love you, don't you know, that I'll be with you all along, as long as you are kind?

Moroha noticed the scent almost immediately. 

It was faint, but distinct enough to linger in her thoughts. Her first impulse—once the battle was over and she’d fully recovered from her trip through time—was to investigate it immediately. But something stopped her. Something like fear, but not quite. There was something alarming about the scent, she couldn’t deny. It smelled a bit like herbs, but more floral, almost like hot tea—but warmer, woodier, even. Something comforting and tender. 

She couldn’t precisely say why it intrigued her, not when there was so much of the twenty-first century around her, offering tantalizing distractions and curiosities. She indulged in these distractions with reckless abandon, scaring the shrine visitors, swiping her “uncle’s” credit card (she caught on to the purpose of a ‘credit card’ when she saw him order takeout over the phone), and exploring the vast village of Tokyo to her heart’s content. 

There was a part of her that wanted to avoid the scent.

But why? Why should a measly smell fill her with dread? She was Moroha the fearless, she could be Beniyasha, destroyer of lands anytime she wanted. She would not be intimidated.

And so, while Towa went to her mysterious ‘school’ and her aunt showed Setsuna a ‘violin’, Moroha slipped out of the apartment and went to the Higurashi shrine. 

She was relieved to find that Mrs. Higurashi—the woman who claimed to be her grandmother—was out shopping. The old man was busy with a couple visiting the shrine, which gave her leave to follow the scent. 

It led her to a half-cracked window, on the upper level of the house. Moroha easily hopped up to the windowsill, opened it all the way, and tumbled inside.

It was a bedroom.

Moroha inhaled deeply. She could smell the scent, but it was just as faint as it had been outside the house. It was an old scent, but it was still powerful. 

She took a step forward. She walked towards the bed and inspected it carefully, testing its springiness. Beds were better in the twenty-first century, there was no denying it—but honestly, any sort of bed was a luxury for her. She knelt down and pressed her face into the softness. A brief flicker of a memory—somewhere in the recesses of her mind, her heart, her spirit, somewhere…a soft hand, brushing a lock of hair from her face. 

She stood up abruptly. She remembered when Mrs. Higurashi had clasped her face in her hands, the way her eyes filled with tears. 

“You have her eyes.”

It felt as though she were speaking to a stranger. She did not know Kagome Higurashi. She felt uncomfortable thinking of her parents so she usually avoided it, focusing on the thrill of a good bounty, irritating the local demon slayers, and delicious food. 

But here, in this room…she had no choice but to think of her. 

Moroha crossed over to the desk. Why hadn’t Mrs. Higurashi cleaned this desk? It remained untouched, papers stacked neatly, lamp freshly dusted. She opened one of the drawers and saw bits of charcoal, the sort you wrote with, along with several other instruments she didn’t know. She pulled another drawer out and saw a strange, black leather book. 

Brow furrowed, Moroha picked it up. She leafed between the pages cautiously.

Portraits. Amazing portraits. Portraits in this era seemed to capture people so skillfully, as though someone trapped a moment on a bit of glossy parchment. She knew almost instinctively who she was looking at. The high priestess Kagome. Her mother. 

Moroha had been told stories about Kagome all her life. Kagome’s grace, her beauty, the reincarnation of the beloved priestess Kikyo…though Myoga was careful to remind Moroha that Kagome hated to be reduced to simply a reincarnation. She had her own spiritual powers, her own personality that was diametrically different from the legendary Kikyo. After all, it was Kagome who defeated the Shikon jewel, not Kikyo. 

Kagome was not in her priestess garb in these pictures. She wore a shorter style of dress, which exposed quite a bit of leg, in green and white colors. Green and white? Perhaps there was some ceremonial meaning to the colors. Myoga had told her that this skimpy outfit was a trademark of Kagome’s, and it touched something that like Moroha herself, Kagome did not give a fig how she looked to the rest of the world. 

A hardened lump grew in Moroha’s throat. She turned the page and gasped.

One of these portraits had captured her father. Kagome was holding his arm, smiling, and he looked down at her with a curious mixture of confusion and wariness, as though he didn’t quite trust the tender gesture. He looked embarrassed, as though he didn’t know how to respond to Kagome’s open affection for him. 

Moroha knew she took after her mother in terms of physical appearance. But as she looked at her father’s hardened demeanor, his unwillingness to let people in, she felt a dreadful kinship with a half-demon she did not know. Irritated at the flood of emotions, she slammed the book shut.

“Moroha?”

She glanced up. The old man—her apparent great grandfather, hobbled into the room, looking at her curiously. 

“Oh,” His rheumy eyes swam. “You’re in her room. Oh my…for a moment I thought it was your mother in here.”

Moroha looked away from him. “I didn’t realize it was hers. I just…followed a scent.”

“Ah, yes, your father always said he could follow her scent anywhere,” The old man shuffled inside. “Never quite understood that, but I suppose if you have dog demon blood…you inherit that ability.”

Moroha stood up. “I should go. Sorry for poking my nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

“Doesn’t belong?” Her great grandfather’s eyes widened. “Oh, child, if you belong anywhere, it’s here! I know your mother would want you to meet us, to have a place here with us. You’re just as much of a Higurashi as Towa! Your mother—”

“I don’t know her, okay?!”

He staggered back a little and Moroha cursed herself a little. She had intended not to tell them that she had little to no memories of her parents. Why worry the Higurashi family, when they were being so kind to her cousins and herself? She had promised herself. But the overpowering emotions she felt in this room, the whisper of memories she only remembered in dreams…it was too much to bear.

“I’m sorry, okay?” She raked her fingers through her hair. “Don’t—don’t tell your daughter. Kagome’s mom. I’ve just—I’ve never met them, okay?”

“How—how can that be?” His eyes filled with tears. “Are they—did they—”

“I don’t know.”

She dreamed of them sometimes. She could not access the memories, not truly, and she didn’t want them in any case. But they came to her late at night nevertheless, tormenting her deepest slumbers. She remembered the feeling of being held and the scent…that scent that immersed this old room. Floral, with a brush of mahogany, the barest traces of incense. It smelled like home. 

“You’re such a good child.”

Her mother’s soft hand, brushing against her cheek so gently. She could feel her mother’s sadness. Her mother’s fear.

“Kagome! They’re here.”

The sound of a sword being drawn. Kagome’s grip growing tighter around her. Slipping her a small seashell between Moroha’s tiny fingers. 

“This is a keepsake from Inuyasha’s mother.”

A sudden wetness, like rain, splashing across her face. 

“We decided that if we had a girl, we would give this to her.”

The warmth around her disappeared. She was placed on a tanuki demon’s back. Where was her mother’s scent? Where was her father comforting growl? She felt so cold. So alone.

“Hachi-san, please take care of her.”

Moroha’s eyes filled with tears as her great-grandfather gazed at her in concern. Angrily, she brushed them away. 

“She left me, old man,” Her voice cracked. “She left me.”

He shook his head rapidly. “No, no. Kagome would never abandon her child.”

“Hate to break it to you, old man,” Moroha spat. “I grew up on my own. I don’t have any memories of Kagome or Inuyasha. They left me. They left me!”

The images were too powerful to hold back now. The way her mother’s tears splashed across her little cheeks, her father’s anguished expression as she flew off into the stars, on the back of a tanuki. His sword glinting in the moonlight, her mother’s hands clasped in prayer. 

“They left me!”

The rage she’d been holding back exploded and she flung the photo album across the room. It crashed against the wall with a heavy thump and scattered the dusty things on her mother’s desk across the room. Moroha sank to her knees, breathing hard. 

Her great grandfather moved towards her. “Are you all right?”

The scent was overpowering. She couldn’t handle it. It was breaking her from the inside. “I’m not all right!”

She slammed her fist on the ground and a framed picture of her mother clattered to the floor. In another burst of anger, she snatched the picture and flung it across the room. 

“How could she leave me here?” Moroha’s voice broke. “She was supposed to be my light. He was supposed to keep me safe against them all…”

“Moroha,” Her great-grandfather knelt next to her and wrapped his arms around her. “What happened? What happened to them?”

She didn’t know. No one would tell her. Myoga guided and watched over her, but all she truly remembered was being alone. The fleeting memories from her dreams…they never felt real to her. Her real memories were of solitude. 

“Sorry, Gramps,” Moroha cleared her throat. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have come in here. I just lost control a little bit, that’s all.”

His eyes still asked questions, questions she could never truly answer. Not for a while, at least. She needed to find those answers for herself. 

“Moroha…” He patted her back. “Would you like to join me and my friends for our tai-chi tomorrow morning?”

Relief swam through her. He wasn’t going to push her. Thank the gods. She felt such gratitude towards this man, the grandfather of her absent mother. She smiled at him brightly.

“Sure, Gramps. No problem.”

**Author's Note:**

> The Amazing Devil's song "Welly Boots" inspired the shit out of this fic. Highly recommend you go YouTube it. You can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UErTIqZ8gyE. It applies SO MUCH to Moroha it hurts me every time I listen to it.


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